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IDC is out today with its latest report tracking worldwide tablet shipments, reporting that total shipments have experienced a sequential decline during Q2 at the expense of Apple and the iPad. Apple already announced that it had sold 14.6 million iPads during the quarter, a significant drop from the 17 million it sold in the year ago quarter, but today IDC gives us some insight into where that puts Apple in its lead over Samsung as the top tablet vendor.

Apple was able to pick up 32.4% of the market during Q2, continuing its lead as the top tablet manufacturer, but dropping from the 60.3% of the market it had in Q2 last year. While Apple’s tablet shipments are clearly suffering from lack of new product announcements this year, it’s also losing share to Samsung and others. IDC reports 277% year over year growth for Samsung, giving it 18% of the market with 8.1 million units shipped during Q2. All of the top 3 vendors– Apple, Samsung, and ASUS– experienced a drop compared to Q1 2013, but the Android tablet makers have experienced significant growth compared to Apple since last year.

Now, Apple is expected to launch new tablet products in the second half of the year, a move that better positions it to compete during the holiday season. Meanwhile, the other two vendors in the top 3 also saw a decline in their unit shipments during the quarter. Second-place Samsung shipped 8.1 million units, down from 8.6 million in the first quarter of 2013, although up significantly from the 2.1 million units shipped in 2Q12. And third-place ASUS shipped a total of 2.0 million units in 2Q13, down from 2.6 million in 1Q13.

While total shipments dropped -9.7% over Q1 2013, IDC notes that 45.1 million total units shipped is actually up 59.6% from Q2 last year, thanks largely to growth from Samsung followed by Asus, Lenovo, and Acer.

Not all vendors experienced a slowdown during the quarter. PC stalwarts Lenovo and Acer both re-entered the top five this quarter. Lenovo continued to make headway into the world of mobility and for the first time had shipments surpass the million unit mark in a quarter, shipping a total of 1.5 million devices. This was up 313.9% from a year ago and enough to capture 3.3% market share. Rounding out the top 5 was Acer, which shipped 1.4 million tablets in 2Q13 for 247.9% year-over-year growth and an increase of 35.4% over the first quarter of 2013.

As always, IDC’s numbers reflect shipments of branded tablets, not sales, and “exclude OEM sales for all vendors.”

WHY DO THESE STORIES EVEN GET REPORTED!!!! All the data is based on units shipped as is readily admitted above. Microsoft’s results showed that most surface tablets have been “shipped” to warehouses where they sit, un-purchased by customers. Chikita data shows that iOS is dominating in the market place. The Android vendors can SHIP all the tablets they want. The majority of consumers are purchasing iPads. I don’t understand why this gets any media attention. Who cares how many units manufacturers ship. It’s what is sold that is important and of course, Apple is the only company that readily reports their sales.

The shipped vs sold argument has some meaning in some cases but if you’re going to challenge whether the shipments are sales or not, then give something to back it up. Chikita figures are one way to do just that but, of course, that can be argued away as well. For me, I tend to look at it as these companies would have to report major losses in their filings if they were truly not getting many sales from their shipments. For some companies there has certainly been a hit but for others I don’t think it’s all that bad.

On a different note as a US citizen I really don’t care all that much about worldwide sales. I want apple to do well enough in a large enough market that brings in developers to create and support the apps I want or need in my language. China and India among others means little to me. Show me marketshare numbers for the US and then I’ll start somewhat caring about the marketshare arguments. Apple has been making record profits off of the US market…their marketshare elsewhere is not going to affect the market I’m interested in.

Usual fake statistics based on fake numbers.
Android manufacturers don’t report the actual real numbers of units sold just like Samsung.
Then the tablet usage on web monitoring sites tells that 70-80% of people use an iPad.
And iOS so iPad too get 80% of the whole market profit… all Android manufacturers combined can’t even grasp half of the profit.

I hope you guys are kidding.
Yes, those are shipments, but even though it doesn’t yield precise figures, it gives you an idea of the market trends. Unless, you know, shipments are greatly overestimated among all Android tablet manifacturers, but we can be quite sure it’s not the case.
It you’re looking at tablets getting dust on the shelves, look at Microsoft’s Surface. Which, incidentally, isn’t an Android tablet.
But you can be *sure* that the traffic generated by *existing* tablets doesn’t give you an idea of today’s tablet market.

@MaxArt : “Unless, you know, shipments are greatly overestimated among all Android tablet manifacturers, but we can be quite sure it’s not the case.” “But you can be *sure* that the traffic generated by *existing* tablets doesn’t give you an idea of today’s tablet market.” — You can’t be more wrong than that. What the heck are you talking about? Really…
That tells everything.
And no, people that buy the atrocious cheap Android crap just don’t use them. And they don’t buy content either, they don’t buy music, movies, books. They don’t buy apps and games. They want everything for free and either go pirate or don’t use the devices.
That’s the reason why Android doesn’t generate much profit.

Taking aside all the hate-speech against Android, all that remain is just plain wrong.
First, you just *explicitly* said that the traffic generated by tablet users does *not* reflect the current market. Second, the current market figures does *not* give hints to the current market trends. That’s why the generated traffic is the last data you should pick to know the market trends. Period.

If you ask me, Apple’s business strategy is fundamentally flawed. They are making the exact same mistake today that they made 20+ years ago. Hardware and Software are completely different markets, and you have to treat them differently. Software inherently leads to monopolization, it is an all or nothing market. Just ask Corel, Lotus 1,2,3, or Open office. These are all very good, well developed programs. However, they fell out of use because it is far too big of a pain to play with the compatibility issue. Even Apple had to secede this point with Microsoft Office before they began their revival in the PC market.

Hardware on the other hand demands many options, which makes monopolizing the hardware market almost impossible. Everyone needs to be represented in the hardware market. This includes the ridiculous 6″ display, to the poor Chinese worker who can’t afford a smart phone over $200. They all want to be represented, and eventually some savy business man will find a way to represent them. You can’t release 1 or 2 products, and expect the majority of people to be satisfied.

Apple tries too hard to monopolize both markets. When they realize that they can’t monopolize the hardware market, they try and make their product an “exclusive” status symbol. This is how they charge such ridiculously high prices for their products. However, this exclusive status causes software compatibility issues with everyone Apple refuses to target. Because we are lazy and don’t want to deal with these issues, the market will demand that the software standardize. However, Apple has already decided that they will not target 70% of people with their software. So when the software standardizes, it won’t be with iOS. The software will standardize behind the majority of people. This is why Apple lost out in the PC market, and it is going to happen to the mobile market. When this happens Apple will fall in the exact same rut they were in 15 years go. If Apple is going to survive, they need to choose to become the developer king like Microsoft and Google, and let the hardware manufactures duke it out, or they need to become the premier hardware manufacture and either let other developers either make hardware for iOS or they need to make hardware for the dominant operating system. Apple fans will probably consider this blaspheme, however, the course Apple is on will eventually loose out.